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If you are a manager at the same time an owner of a business or an organization then, one of the challenges you are faced with is the challenge of developing and taking advantage of business opportunities that are provided to you and your company. Moreover, as a manager you always have to strive for growth and development. To achieve that aim, you have to have an effective business development strategy? Now, how are you going to do that? What does it requires creating an effective business development strategy? Read on and learn from the following tips.

1. Brace yourself up with sufficient knowledge as well as excellent management practices and strategies. As a manager who aims for growth of his or her business or organization, you have to have sufficient knowledge and excellent management practices and strategies. Well, these will all boils down to whether you will be revolutionary or evolutionary in coming up with ideas and strategies for development. The idea or strategy you will come up with will be the basis for your company to either revolutionize or evolve.

2. It takes a multi-disciplinary approach. An effective business development strategy entails a multi-disciplinary approach which includes financial, advertising and legal skills from you as the development manager. This means that you need to come up with creative ways that are flexible to be applied with just about any circumstances that may hit your business. of course, these ways should contribute to the prosperity of your business and not its failure.

3. Create a strategic marketing plan. There are various aspects in your business wherein business development strategies can help your business to grow and prosper. Strategic marketing plan, as such, will deal with the changing customer base and market dynamics. It will also aid in understanding horizontal and vertical target market opportunities and help you learn how to pick out and develop products, services or solutions to address the needs of your target market.

4. Decide on what kind of approach in planning. Take note that a plan shouldn’t be on its own to work nor will you solely manage it to work. A plan can take the form of either a ‘bottom up’ approach or a ‘top down’ approach. A plan in a bottom up approach involves employees to come up with ideas and suggestions. After which, the best one are passed on to the management. On the other hand, a plan in a top down approach involves higher position personnel such as the managers to establish the business development strategies and then, imposed them down to their subordinates. Additionally, there is the use of collaborative process where managers and employees work together as one in performing this task.

5. Evaluation. Now, after the business development strategy has been decided on, it will be your task as a manager to make sure that this strategy will work out. To do so, you will need to conduct evaluation of its weak points, strengths, the risk involve and its growth potentials. You may want to hire a strategy consultant for this matter as there are indeed, various factors that must be taken into serious consideration. However, it will be dependent on the complexities that come with its implementation. Some of these factors involve assigning of responsibilities, hiring sufficient human resources and establishing a chain of command. It will also involve a specific timeline to determine whether or not the preferred goals are being accomplished or not.

Evidently, there is no single type of business development strategy that will be enough for any business. So as a manager, you have to brace yourself up with more and more knowledge to know what works for you and your business and determine the corresponding advantages of sticking to it.

Every business should have a solid strategy in place to help them develop in the future.

If a business was to move forward on a day to day basis with no firm plans for the future, it would be at the mercy of its customers and the economy, with no firm control over its own destiny.

Clearly there is a need for a good business development strategy if you want to make the most of growing your business for the future.

But how do you go about creating one?

First, it will help to jot down some ideas for developing your business.

Are there aspects of it that you have not yet fully explored?

How could you enhance the services you offer now in order to make more sales?

Some typical strategies which could be used include focusing more on your existing customers. You could find ways to connect with them more often, perhaps by sending email newsletters to keep them up to date with your latest offerings.

A good strategy here would be to send monthly newsletters to do just that.

An effective business development strategy begins by identifying a need that is present in your business. You then develop a plan to meet that need.

Another example concerns the need to find more new customers instead of simply relying on the ones your business currently has. A strategy to meet that need could be to increase the amount of advertising your business creates.
It is important not to treat this as a one off exercise however.

Businesses and the markets in which they operate are constantly changing. This means that what could begin as a worthwhile strategy may need adjusting over time.

Constant monitoring is another important part of ensuring the business development strategy you come up with is continually successful.

If you are not achieving the results you want, evaluate the situation and ask yourself why.

Is there anything else you could or should be doing?

Are you aiming at the wrong audience?

Have you achieved the maximum growth you can expect in that area?

How a business consultant can help…

Some businesses take on the services of a consulting firm to help them in this respect. Consulting is a good idea as it enlists the help of an expert who is an outsider to your business.

They may easily be able to spot things you have not noticed yourself.

You have no obligation to follow through on their recommendations, but if you are willing to take their advice you may well end up with a business development strategy that can work wonders for your business.

Although these types of strategies can and should be used on an ongoing basis, firm timescales can help to ensure you achieve what you set out to achieve.

For example, you may decide to increase your profits by a specific percentage during a specific time period.
Business development strategies can help you do all this and more.

Using a consulting company such as JACOBY will help you devise a worthwhile and workable strategy to boost your business and set it up for a promising future.

As a manager, one of the foremost concerns to an organization is developing and exploiting business opportunities that are presented to you and your company. In order to grow, you need good knowledge and best management practices and strategies. It comes to down to whether as a business development manager, you are revolutionary or evolutionary. Any strategy that you undertake, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem will revolutionize your company or will evolve it.

Successful business development takes a multi-disciplinary approach in that it involves financial, advertising and legal skills. It is not enough to reduce activities to a simple template that can be applied to all situations faced by real-world enterprises. Being creative in this regard goes a long way in ensuring that any new and unforeseen challenges contribute to sustainable growth of a company rather than its demise.

There are several areas where business development strategies can help your organization to grow and succeed. Development strategies based on a strategic marketing plan for example will address a changing customer base and market dynamics, help one to understand horizontal and vertical target market opportunities and how to develop the right products, services and solutions to meet the target market needs. This plan should not just be an accident. Most successful business owners will tell you that a carefully planned business strategy was involved. A plan can take either a ‘bottom up’ approach or a ‘top down’ approach. A bottom up approach is where the employees make suggestions and the best are passed up the management while the top down approach is where top managers create the business development strategies and implement them down the chain of command. Another approach is the use of collaborative process where managers and employees work together.

In order for a business development strategy to work, you will need to evaluate its weaknesses, strengths, risks and growth potential. If possible, a strategy consultant may be included. Several factors will need to be taken into consideration, depending on the complexities that come with implementation. These include assigning responsibilities, sufficient resources and establishing a chain of command. A timeline will also need to be developed to evaluate if the desired goals are being achieved. Obviously, no one type of business development strategy is going to work for every business. Find out what works for you and your organization and the benefits of sticking to it.